Web of Risk
by C. Q. 'Never Scared' Darkley
Summary: Shino, an excellent strategist that has never failed, takes a risky mission involving foreign lands and a powerful weapon that must be in Leaf Ninja hands.
1. Conceived in Darkness

It was pitch black and the air held a raw stench that was jammed hard into the nostrils with every breath. Besides being an assault on the nose, the dust in the air clung to the skin, mixing with sweat to make a mud. Amazingly none of this bothered the man who tread down the hall. He walked with purpose; one hand clasping the single torch, which barely let him see a foot in front of him. He proceeded at a decent pace, not very fast but also not slow and wary. He stopped upon reaching a door to a great open room.

He waved the torch back and forth but could not get a glimpse into the room. He sighed and, using the wall as a guide, proceeded to light the torches hung about the room. Once finished, the light of the torches was barely enough to make out the floor. They burned a dim yellow that gave the room a dusty look. It was as if all the sources of light were tired, allowing darkness to nibble at their edges. It took his eye a few seconds to adjust to the level of illumination in the room.

Gazing around, he caught sight of his prize. He approached it gingerly, wincing every time his feet sent a piece of the metal bouncing across the room. Upon reaching it he gasped in anticipation.

It was something to behold. The was beautiful and horrendous at the same time. He reached out to it.

"Do not touch it."

The voice was barely audible; it was but a muted shout. He could hear the anger. The man turned around to see the golden horn jutting out of the blue helm.

"Ahh" he said, "Nightmare."

"How do you know me, mortal?"

"That is irrelevant. The question you should ask is 'what can you do for me?'" As he spoke he approached the helmet.

It asked, "What can you do for me?"

The man laughed; a smooth baritone sound that bounced about the room.

"I can do many things. You asked my question wrong. It's what can 'you' do for 'me'?"

The helmet growled. It could not move but if it could it would have tried lunging at him.

"I do nothing for any man except grant him death."

The man laughed again.

"Yes. Exactly." He walked to the center of the room, holding the helmet in one hand. Once there he lifted the gruesome helm to look it in the eye.

"Alas, poor Yorrick, I knew him well."

The man then sat the empty helm on the ground, chuckling as he took a place a few feet away.

"Who is this Yorrick?" asked Nightmare.

The man looked at the helm with surprise on his face which quickly dissolved into amusement.

"He," he said, "is a man I aim to meet with your help."

The man then began chanting in a language made of k's, u's, s's, and a's. He spoke this unlanguage while waving his arms to and fro. Next he switched to a language devoid of vowels. To this chant, he raised his hands as if he was lifting an invisible weight over and over.

The helmet and other armor pieces started joining to together while dirt from the room flowed to fill the inside of the armor. The right arm of the armor was absent only to be replaced by a giant brown three fingered claw. Once the last bit of dust was inside, the blue knight stood like a museum display, horrible to look at but essentially harmless due to its immobility.

The man examined at the terrible statue and nodded to himself. It was a dark dirty blue color with brown-golden trim. It had the shape of regular plate armor except that every angle was exaggerated to make the armor appear sharper. On the chest the golden trim made an eye with a slanted pupil.

"Now for some power." Swirling his hands in front of him, the man began wailing. It brought a cold whirlwind that chose the armor as its focal point. The eyes in the armor glowed with a red light as the wind died. When the whirlwind stopped, the azure knight could move.

The man, sweaty with effort, smiled as a large orange ugly fleshly sword formed in the knight's hands.

"Excellent, Nightmare, excellent." He moved to gather the beautiful and ugly thing he had left at the throne. "Find Siegfried and bring him to the swords. "

"Heh, heh, heh." Nightmare laugh was a harsh sound, like two rocks grating against each other. He admired his body, moving his arms and kicking his legs, "Your magics are truly amazing, wizard. To control such power you must have a powerful soul."

The man smiled at the monster, "I already know where this is go-, "he began before rolling under a wild swipe. He recovered near the doorway he originally entered in, with the prize in hand. The man held out his free hand as the creature was just beginning to turn around.

"Begone," he spoke and the blue knight vanished. The man grabbed one of the torches hung on the wall. As he turned down the hallway he said to himself "He'll do what I want." He chuckled while looking into the clouded eye of the thing he held, "He has to." The man walked merrily into the dark hall, laughing to himself the entire way.


	2. Weight of the Opening

"Hey have you heard? Naruto is back."

"Really? I haven't. Guess we should go see him right? Because he's our friend."

"Yeah let's go."

The two young men finished their lunch and rose up. The first boy to speak turned to the girl still sitting at the table. "Hinata, want to go see Naruto?" The girl kept her head down so the boys could not see her smile. "Kiba," the other boy spoke, "did you finish signing us up for the mission? If you didn't then means we technically can't do the mission." Kiba, a boy with dark spiky hair and red marks on his face, waved his friend away, "Shino, don't worry…I got this." Shino huffed at his reply. The three rose when a blond boy in orange waved to them. Hinata softly said the boy's name.

Naruto bounced up to the team. "Hey Hinata, hey Kiba…how's it going?" Kiba smiled, showing his fangs and replied with an appropriate greeting. Hinata waved shyly while Shino walked up to get in Naruto's face.

"Hey even if it's been a while, you should remember your comrades' faces. Why? Because otherwise you will hurt their feelings when reunite with them." Naruto looked at the Shino in the face. It took a second but he did remember his name. "Shino?...hey...how's it going?" Naruto asked.

"I've been good."

There was an awkward silence during which Naruto scratched his head and Shino adjusted his shades.

Shino stood to the side as Naruto, Kiba and Hinata (mostly Naruto and Kiba, Hinata just sat there) talked about a mission to bring back their friend Sasuke. Shino sat there watching them. He sighed and sat down at the nearby table, hanging his head just a bit. No one noticed. Sulking, Shino reached out to a spider crawling on the ground near where he sat. He let it walk up his finger into his palm. He brought the creature up this his face, hidden by his coat's high collar and large hood. It let him pet it with is finger and then lowered itself back to the ground. He turned back to his friends just as Naruto left.

"So what was that about?" Shino asked. Kiba petted the lion sized dog next to him.

"He was looking for some people to help him with another mission to bring back Sasuke." Kiba said as he petted the lion sized dog next to him, "I'm told him we couldn't do it."

"Why couldn't we do it?"

"Because of the mission we already accepted, dude. Besides me and Hinata can't leave you to do the mission yourself, can we?"

Shino gave his friend a surprised look, which was hidden by his shades.

"He wasn't planning on bringing me?"

Kiba shrugged. "I guess he didn't think your abilities would help. Don't worry about it."

Kiba grabbed both of his friends around the shoulders.

"Come on guys; let's do a quick workout before we leave."

Shino pulled away. "You guys go ahead…I got something to do."

Kiba shrugged and he, his dog and Hinata left Shino alone at the table. He sat there sulking for a minute then got up. He pointed down the street to orient himself and started off.

The air was comfortably warm in the shade. The balcony was an ideal spot to spend the day thinking or cloud watching. The young man liked doing those things also but right now he was focused on the wooden board in front of him. In this game of shogi, the youth moved both sides, going over a game he played earlier with his father. He moved each piece carefully and only after much thought.

There he could see it; the fatal mistake. Now it loomed huge when before it took him by surprise. He ran one hand up black hair to play with his top knot, which made his head look like a turnip. He fumbled the pieces around only to discover he would have lost anyway. He sighed and leaned back to stare into the sky.

That is when he noticed the Shino standing on the balcony railing. His eyes half closed the shogi player addressed the other boy coolly, "What's up Shino?"

"Not much Shikamaru."

Shikamaru yawned and sat up. He motioned for Shino to join him at the board. Shino did and began speaking.

"You know why I came to talk to you alone? Because I need to talk about something and I think you would understand."

Shikamaru said nothing while he set up the board. Shino watched him place the little tablets on the unchecked board.

Shino watch each piece be laid down one by one until a full army was placed on each side. Shikamaru then explained how each piece moved, taking great care to explain the knight.

"At first glance the knight is such a weak piece. It moves in a weird manner. It goes forward two spaces and then a space to the left or right. It leaps over other pieces. That makes it predictable yet with the right strategy it can become a gamebreaker."

Shino glanced over the pieces again pointing at each one. He looked back up and the game began.

In the opening moves Shikamaru prepared a light defense around his king while Shino began the process of making an impenetrable fortress.

"So why did you come to me exactly?"

Shikamaru asked as he advanced a pawn.

"It's simple really. I came to talk to you because we are quite the same."

Shino answered with a threat to Shikamaru's flank.

"Really? We're the same? You're gonna have to explain that to me."

"Well we're both ninja who win our battles by out-thinking our opponent."

"Is that all?"

Shino was taken aback by the question as he lost a pawn.

"Is that all? That's not enough? You don't feel lonely being so…so…so perfect?"

"Perfect?" Shikamaru asked as he lost his knight, took a rook with his bishop only to lose the bishop to one of Shino's pawns. "Me perfect?...wow."

Shino nodded as he dropped a dawn in the promotion zone. Shikamaru shook his head and leaned back after his turn.

"Perfection is such a drag. I'm not perfect…"

"You were the first to graduate from Chunin rank, despite losing your match to the Sand kunoichi." Shikamaru smiled to himself as Shino continued, "You're one of the top ranked ninja despite having led the failed "Sasuke Retrieval" mission. And on top of all that, you're respected and known by most of the Jonin. If you're not perfect who is?"

"You know," Shikamaru sat up and dropped a rook on the far back rank, "you didn't answer that question."

"What?"

"You have this weird way of talking where you answer your own questions."

"I never noticed."

Shikamaru captured a knight. "Come on. There's no way you haven't noticed that habit."

"I never really thought about it…is it…is it annoying?" Shino asked as he nudged a rook into position.

"A little…checkmate."

Shino looked down at the board in disbelief.

"How did you…"

"I just picked away at your defense until it broke."

"It was perfect…I accounted for all the factors."

"Yeah you did…look I don't know about your life problem but you're too cautious for this game."

"What do you mean?" Shino asked as he collected the pieces.

"You never gave any significant threat. You were too wrapped up in your perfect defense." Shikamaru leaned back once to stare up at the sky, "You were so protective of your king and I was able to shift the fight into your territory."

Shino took off his shades to clean them with his jacket. He made an effort to bow his head to hide his eyes.

"Huh? Still I had more pieces on around my king."

"Warriors sitting on their thumbs aren't any use. You even left a knight and your lancers, two pieces that only move forward, to protect your king."

"They are weak pieces without proper strategy…you said that yourself."

"Yeah but they got to be put out there," Shikamaru held up one piece in each hand, "They don't show their full capabilities in the back, none of the pieces do."

"So every piece must come to the front, right?"

"In their due time…sorry I couldn't help you. Life can be a real downer sometimes."

"Yeah, well...I'll see you around."

Shino lifted one leg on to the balcony railing to prepare to leave when Shikamaru spoke.

"Hey, if you ever want to play another game…"

"Yea."

Shino then jumped off the balcony into the street leaving Shikamaru with the board. He watched the other boy leave.

"What a depressing dude"

He then continued replaying his earlier game.


End file.
